Medical marijuana dispensary to open Nov. 14 in Palm Beach County

The number of doctors who have qualified to recommend medical marijuana is on the rise. Who are they? Where are they?

The first medical marijuana dispensary in Palm Beach County will open Tuesday in what used to be a bank.

Knox Medical will open at noon Tuesday at 1 South Dixie Highway in Lake Worth, across the street from Lake Worth City Hall.

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“We are very excited to open in Lake Worth and to serve the patient community that has asked for our presence for a very long time,” said José Hidalgo, founder of Knox, one of the 10 companies licensed in Florida to provide medical marijuana.

Three-fourths of Florida voters in 2016 agreed that people with certain medical conditions should be allowed to use marijuana to alleviate their suffering.

No dispensaries have opened in Broward County yet. And seven Broward County municipalities have banned pot shops or put moratoriums on them opening. Boca Raton banned the pot shops in October, but city commissions in Deerfield Beach and Boynton Beach have agreed to allow them.

John Nesbit, who runs a retail business on Dixie Highway in the dispensary’s vicinity in Lake Worth, is all for it.

Marijuana “is a lot better than the opiates they’ve been prescribing for the last 10 years,” Nesbit said. “They are doing crazy things to get these [opiate] drugs. You don’t see that with marijuana.”

Knox Medical opened its first Florida marijuana retail outlet in Gainesville in May and others in Orlando, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville. But the company delivers the product from the Panhandle to the Florida Keys, according to company spokesman Scott Klenet.

Three marijuana centers have been allowed in Miami-Dade County, one in Kendall and two in Miami.

Those who qualify to have it recommended include those with cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, ALS, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis or "other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class, " per the amendment's language.

Klenet said the retail outlets will offer drops that are put under the tongue, or vapor cartridges. Patients can buy 300 milligrams of the medicine for $45 or 600 milligrams for $90.